Lightsaber: The Star Wars VII Novel
by Team Wingless
Summary: Rey is a girl wrench-hand, Ben is a priest turned pirate. But when Darth Starkiller descends upon the Republic with his army of First Order Stormtroopers, it's fight-or-flight for their lives. He seeks Ben's former Master, a Jedi named Skywalker, and Rey for her connection to a mysterious Sith Lord known as Darth Revan. May the Force be with them...they're going to need it...
1. Chapter 1

.

THE FORCE REIMAGINED

.

Anakin Skywalker

has fulfilled the prophecy

to bring balance to the Force,

and his son has laid his body to rest.

That was twenty years ago...

.

But when Peace had been restored to the Republic,

one other felt a disturbance in the Force. Darth Starkiller,

apprentice and self-proclaimed heir of Lord Vader, raced back

from the Outer Rim to find his father dead at the hands of his own blood.

He will stop at nothing to continue the Empire's legacy, restore order to the Galaxy,

and bring his errant brother to justice. He knows not where to find him, but knows who does.

.

Now the last Jedi apprentice awaits on Tattooine, unaware of the torrent from the sky sent to annihilate him and his long lost master...


	2. Chapter 2

A fallen sun, a nova star—these were the two celestial bodies visible in Tattooine's sky.

"Astrophysicists theorize that planetary magnetic waves make up the components of the Force, but us Jedi Knights know it as an energy field created by all sentient life. It surrounds us, penetrates us, and binds the galaxy together..."

The youth in a brown tunic and duster boots sat upon a rock on the outskirts of a moisture-farming colony, while a small but considerable crowd drew to hear the young outsider's words. He'd been there for three days preaching, showed up with nothing but the smock on his back and a sunburn, accompanied by a little ball droid that carried around an empty sardine can with the word "tithes" scrawled on it. Now he made rocks levitate and picked children up with his mind, parlor tricks that had the crowd wide-eyed and clapping.

"Thank you all. The Force is based on goodwill towards our fellow man. Having said that...does anyone have any food or a place to crash?"

A solar still repairman put him up for the night, where his dip of a teenaged daughter was more than impressed by his dashing jawline and slick smile. He got his good looks from his mother, he said, and his dastardly wit from his father. With the traditional cropped hair and thin braid of a young Jedi Acolyte, she ate up every word he said with the sweet confidence of naïveté.

"You've had some adventures. What did you say your name was?"

And he reclined on the tundra-grass sofa with cool ease.

"Call me Ben... _Ben Solo_ , best star pilot in the galaxy, Captain of the Millennium Falcon. You know, the ship that made the Kessel run in less than twelve parsepts."

"Oh wow! But...where is your ship?"

"That's actually why I'm here. Star pirates boarded me off Tau-14, took my ship and left me stranded on a freeport with just my laptop droid. Heard through the grapevine that she was on this planet somewhere though, so I'm tracking her down."

"Well no ship like that's come through here, but what were you doing all the way out by that star system? Only raiders and smugglers make their lot out there."

"Um...got lost. My navicomputer needed an attitude adjustment."

"You're really brave, being a Jedi and all. But...I thought the Jedi were extinct?"

"I'm the _last one_. All of the old order's hopes and dreams rest on my shoulders. But the Force is strong with me, I have faith. Hey...wanna see my lightsaber?"

Her eyes lit up, while the flicker of trouble crossed his.

"...Let's go in your room where it's dark."

"Why do we have to be in the dark?"

"You'll see..."

They crossed the modestly furnished abode to her chambers, a magnetic door depressurizing and sliding open by a touchpad lock. They slipped into cranial darkness, standing before each other cloaked in the deep veldt of interstellar void.

A static scoring, and a thin beam of radiant laser light extended from a nickel-played hilt.

"Whoooooaaa!" her hands leapt to her face at indigo resonance, humming in a lulling tone that buffeted the air as it moved.

"I built it myself," Ben declared as he waved his blade in a slow arc. "All Jedi have to build their own lightsabers."

"Can I try it?"

"Only those who are in tuned with the Force can strike them. But...if you let me hold your hands, the blade may stay caught."

She obliged him, letting him step behind her and engulf her in arms of wiry white muscle. The gymnastics training he'd endured under his tenure as an Apprentice gave him the lean warrior's frame, gone somewhat soft as if he hadn't kept up with it. He wrapped her hands around the nickel-plated hilt, and watched as she stood in awe.

"Cool huh?"

Her eyes beamed like the lyrical light pulsating in a steady stream of piezoelectric vibrance.

"My father tells me the Jedi were once hunted. Aren't you afraid they'll come after you like the others?"

"Nah. Besides, the Empire's been dead for twenty years-"

A screaming came across the sky, slicing the air with a high-pitched roar that tore the sound-barrier to shreds. A low rumbling, building and boring shook the ground they stood on. Explosion. Outside.

They ran out to see the repeater tower in flaming shambles, and H-modeled tie-fighters streaking the settlement with blaster fire. A massive surface cruiser appeared from the clouds, bringing the earth-pounding rumble in its wake. Touchdown, and hordes of plasteel armored stormtroopers descended upon the settlement with blaster fire.

Ben was unlucky enough to be caught with his lightsaber in full view.

" _There he is. Seize him!_ " radio static ordered, and a detachment of troops raced toward him.

He sent his ball droid out into the wastes.

"Go Bebe! I'll meet you at the Falcon!"

The droid beeped and sped off into the darkness of instrument jamming sand dunes.

Ben dashed out toward the formation of troops, who unloaded full clips of laser fire at him. He whirled his blade in reflective flourishes, bouncing the bolts off in timed hits he felt with his mind. _Stun beams_...someone wanted him alive.

He leapt inexplicably high over the formation's line, and went to town with his saber. A fulminating arc-slash disarmed the detachment leader, literally, both arms falling limp on the ground. The circle that formed around him prevented laser fire, as now they would fire on each other, so shock-sticks came at him in harrowing down-bashes. He upswiped them all sidelong over and over. His training had taught him that no matter how many enemies he faced, it was the same as having that many consecutive one-on-one matches. Hard, but not impossible.

A stray blast beam came from the town, which brought the wrath of the First Order down upon it. The townspeople banded together in a last stand of futile defense, and were cut down wantonly and mercilessly by the highly trained point-infantry stormtroopers. But one troop stood in his full plasteel armor hyperventilating as he watched the slaughter.

A townsman whose blaster had shorted ran at him with a vibroknife. He had no choice but to fire. The searing laser bolt punched through his unarmored torso, and the man fell upon him stone dead. Blood smeared across the trooper's visor as he looked down on the mannequin body with a whirling sense of dread.

Ben meanwhile slid on his knees under a raking shock-stick, uptwirling his saber in a masterful cross to cleave wrist from weapon. The stormtroopers advanced in a dire strife against a single warrior. It didn't matter how heat-resistant their nomex coated armor plating was. The lightsaber sliced through them like hot butter.

A torrent rushed through the air, something unseen but felt, and Ben fell to the ground in choking spasms. A power stronger than shock-sticks assailed his senses.

A black-cloaked figure, dark and malevolent, descended from the loading ramp of the freighter. Encased in a suit of tungsten armor, and masked in a cybernetic stalker helm that shielded his eyes from direct sight—relying on _the Force_ for vision—few galactic terrors could compare to the sheer aural evil of a Sith Lord.

"Lord Starkiller!" a silver stormtrooper reported to him, while all others stood at salute. Three sentinels brought a restrained Ben wrestling for freedom before him, and the boy shut his big mouth quick.

The dark lord looked beyond him, regarding him with a sense other than sight.

"Where is your Master?" he spoke in a deep guttural tremor, steeped in metal reverb.

"Look man, you caught me. I'm not a Jedi, I just say I'm one to get chicks."

The aforementioned girl was brought by a pair of stormtroopers and hauled to her knees before him.

"Your Master, or her life," Darth Starkiller repeated. Ben cocked a hard eyebrow.

"Uhhh...I kinda just met her."

The dark lord needed not even bother with his lightsaber. With a stray glance, the girl's head exploded. Bloody residue splattered onto Ben's face and chest, and his captors dragged him off toward the surface shuttle.

The dark lord flowed like he barely touched the ground, over to where a detachment held the remaining townspeople on their knees.

"Jedi sympathizers, my lord. Orders?"

"Cut off their hands."

So it was ordered, so it was carried out. The entire village of able-bodied men, women and children, was systematically maimed. No one would pick up a sword in this settlement.

While the First Order detachment assembled to move out, one stormtrooper with blood on his visor stood in stone silence.


	3. Chapter 3

A desert smock, a quarterstaff—These were the two convectively heated objects currently burning Rey's back.

She'd hiked all the way out to the salt flats seeking employment on the pit-crew of a devilstick team. Racers would hire any junker with an Allen wrench who could make it across the dried lake to the starting line. A Vulkar gang netted her and stuck her on spark plugs, since her nimble fingers were small enough to maneuver in an overheating engine. Easy money.

Unfortunately for Rey, the jockey dropped dead of heat stroke two flag-calls before the final line-up, and she had been stretching at the time.

"Oh _dzwrtesjeygzget_! Anyone know how to pilot a Mark 1? You do? GOOD YOU'RE HIRED!"

She found herself strapped to a hover-bike with a hog-tie, as the stabilizing belt was too big for her. It's not like she could protest. They had shock-sticks and she had a…stick.

Vaulted to the starting line by two big wrench-hands, roaring engines flaring carbon exhaust fumes in her face, she whispered a silent prayer to the seven Vish'nu Gods she'd been taught to believe in but didn't.

The flags came up…her heart dropped down. The flags came down, she kicked the release stud and the devilstick flamed into motion.

She shot forward in jerky wave-patterns, bashing the sides of other jockeys who bashed back into her. Three bikes careened into a tangle in front as she swooped sharply left to avoid the pile-up. These devilsticks were bad animals to get used to, requiring a rigid feel to control the power thrust, lest the rider be pitched clear from the seat.

But Rey felt an ethereal focus wretch her senses into autonomic survival mode, that or pure terror ratcheted her adrenal gland into high-gear. She kicked the bike's stabilizer off and rode the lake shoulder into the chase pack.

The world rushed by in blurred lines, stratovariance obscuring shapes in her peripherals. Sticks shot by her in a mechanical whirr of their revved engines but Rey fought hard to keep on the leader. Someone threw a frag grenade into a dune to stir up a storm of loose sand. _Lovely_. Now Rey would be blind and most likely her instruments would jam.

She held her breath through the fog of dust and shut her eyes tight. All of her senses activated at once against the biting sand, sound waves bouncing off her skin, the smell of burnt gaskets, the hum and purr of devilsticks in front of her. She emerged from the plume still on the leader while a jockey next to her slammed into another rider. The stick did a _danse macabre_ and exploded.

A narrow corridor nestled between high cliffs came upon them. She topped a high rock to jettison up onto the cliff so as to not get bunched in. Shortcut. But she wasn't alone.

Six jockeys came up on her flank, riding her wake. She cut to the edge of the cliff hugging ground, her jet flame searing the dry dust. If they wanted to pass her, they could. But one rider didn't want to pass.

She caught him in her peripherals, the flash of chrome the only warning she got before he banked over toward her. A subtle tingling in her mind moved her hand to the brake line, and she slowed as he barreled into where she had been flying…straight over the cliff. A breath, and she sped back up.

A deathtrap of eroded stone lay before the racers. This line of rock was called _The Ribbon_ , a land bridge over the start of a dry ocean that fanned out into a desert abyss miles down. The remains of crashed devilsticks littered the floorbed in metallic skeletons.

The stick-jockeys broke the pack and lined out to cross. Wherever you were in the chase pack was where you would stay. Trying to pass was a great way to push others off the edge into a fiery, sandy death, and fall with them in the process. It was well known that some gangs held riders' families hostage to get them to suicide into competition, killing two birds with one speed bike.

Rey tucked into a downward airflow, preparing to ride the Ribbon. The rush of jato heat raked the side of her bike's housing as a rider fell in place behind her, clipping her back tailfin.

The rider weaved in a hazardous ploy to hook her back jet casing, one jockey with a death wish. Hot terror swept her windpipe as she struggled to regain stability. She gunned her boosters but he rode her wake as she sliced the wind for him, gaining with every twist and fold of the land.

A bash lurched her forward, and she knew she was caught. He'd hooked her bike with the nose of his devilstick and would veer her over the side. She couldn't swerve now, it wouldn't unhook them and they'd crash anyway. A thought. A risk…

She took her quarterstaff and blind-slashed a clean arc behind her. It broke the nose of the rider's stick and sent him careening into a forward somersault over the edge. The last thing she saw of him was his smoking jet stream layering the sky.

The finish line found her in a razzled state of shock. She finished in eighteenth place, bad considering that only nineteen people had crossed the finish line, but phenomenal considering that twenty hadn't.

The purse was modest, split between six pit-men and a rider…she could have made more on spark plugs. They told her to come race again. She said she'd think about it.

On her hike back across the sand dunes, she spotted something odd—a jawa on a goana mount trying to drag a net that dragged itself the other way. Jawas were filthy little creatures masked in sackcloth robes that perpetually hid their features, which all agreed was for the best.

She quickened her pace toward it. Jawas only caused trouble for people anyway. A curse hurled at the mount told it to halt while she unwrapped the net from around a little ball droid, who clicked up at her in grateful beeps. More angry garbled noises came from the jawa, but a hand on her quarterstaff and an aggressive step forward told it to get lost. The goana lumbered away in submission.

"What've you gotten yourself into, little thing?" Rey inspected the orange-patterned ball droid. She found its serial number etched into the back of its mounted eye-lense.

 _BB-84729Z7_

"…Bebe. Well, there's a settlement five miles that way. Should be able to find a junk shop that'll take you in for repairs."

She pointed the droid in the direction and started off. But the little thing sped after her.

"No! You can't come with me. I don't need a droid…and I don't need to spend the credits when you break down in this sand."

The droid _wriggled_ , emitting sad chirps and whines.

"…Ugh! Fine, have it your way."

Rey trudged over high sand dunes that sunk her boots in up to mid-calve, taking the hard way home. But the little droid kept up like a steadfast tin soldier. Whatever.

She got back to her scrap metal shelter buried halfway in the sand and tore through compartments for food. Imperial MRE's. She'd been living off them long enough for her ribs to stick through her loose tunic, and her auburn hair thrown in triple-loops to grow dry and frizzed. But her face was unmarred by the desert sun, fair and fresh enough for the slave traders to ask about her in province, which was why she often kept it covered under a tundra-cloth.

Now she sat outside her hut, built from remnants of an old light freighter that crashed during the Rebel Wars twenty years ago, and stared at another rust sunset. She knew every part of this old smuggler ship, she lived in it. She knew how to power the ignition system and fire up the targeting computer, which still worked enough for a nightlight. But the internal cooling systems were corroded beyond recognition, and the central magnetic burst engine had been plundered long before she got there.

All she could do was sit outside the rusted hunk of junk in despair with a pilot's helmet on her little head, and this odd ball droid named Bebe that followed her around like a puppy.


	4. Chapter 4

Ben awoke strapped into a prisoner wrack like some mental patient. The smell of carbon exhaust told him he was still on a transport ship. Not even the dungeons of a life-supporter smelled this much like his father's garage.

Out the view window he could see their destination: a Star Destroyer, larger than any Imperial craft he'd ever seen in holodecks and shaped like a harrowing sword. Before he could take too many mental notes, his Stormtrooper captors wheeled him on a dolly to the loading dock.

The freighter docked, lots of bouncing around. The ramp lowered into a hangar bay of exceptional proportions and they wheeled him like cargo past entire lined detachments of identical Stormtroopers.

 _Like a big toy army,_ thought Ben, but not too loud. He could sense that his thoughts were being eavesdropped on. Where had this armada spawned from? The Empire was dead!

They took him into a sensory-deprivation room and strapped him into a chair for interrogation. At no point where his restraints removed—they knew better.

In walked darkness himself with a flowing aura that absorbed and dismantled all hope. Darth Starkiller stood succinctly before the captive like he was on a tight schedule.

"Again. Your Master. _Where_?"

"Beats me, man. I don't know what you're on about."

"Lying is useless, young Apprentice. Your identity is well know to us, _Ben Solo._ Your cooperation will determine the ease of your release."

"Yeah right. Go suck on a cockpit knob."

No reaction emanated from the composed Sith Lord.

"You asked a question earlier, _where did this army spawn from_? Much opposed to what your rebel pilot father may have incorrectly taught you, this legion was always part of the Empire, under _my_ command. I have come to succeed where my father failed. It is with pleasure that I welcome you aboard the new power in the Galaxy, _the_ _Finalizer_."

" _Pffffffft whaaaa_? The Finalizer! _Hahahahaha_! This ship looks like a giant penis!"

That got a glower from the dark lord. Ben still insisted on dangerously mocking him.

"... _We will finalize our assault! Finish her!"_

"You tread on mortal ground."

" _The Extender_ …"

Starkiller had had enough. He tightened his mental grip around Ben's windpipe, bringing the laughter to a choking halt.

"Once more, last time. Where is your Master?"

"I don't know, okay! He left me, took off somewhere, I don't know where. He abandoned me and everything he stood for."

"The other way around is more likely. We shall see the truth."

Starkiller's hand shot over Ben's face in a cranial pressure that did not touch his skin. His fingers hovered over Ben's eye sockets, causing his neck to spasm in trembling fits, but Ben held steady. A meditative technique well-practiced in the defense against mind-wiping, he held his thoughts in check and resisted Starkiller's Force probe, inadvertently giving away that he had something to hide.

"No good. Guards."

Starkiller signaled an aide, who jammed a syringe into Ben's neck, and the world went whoozy.

 _Dammit! I knew I should have leveled up the Resist Poison Jedi Ability when I had the chaaaaaaa…_

His consciousness fogged, fading from wakefulness into coma.

Elsewhere on the loading dock of the ship that had transported Ben and the surface team, a Stormtrooper with blood smeared across his visor ducked into a storage closet to hyperventilate. He didn't expect his commanding officer to notice something _out of protocol_ and follow.

"FN-2187…" The silver commander ordered in a devil woman's monotone shrill. The Stormtrooper shot upright. "…You will submit your blaster for inspection."

"Y-yes ma'am."

The Commander walked away with a luring glare, and the Stormtrooper knew he was screwed, unless...

Ben awoke again with a wet spot on his collar from where he'd been drooling. Dizzy vertigo set in. He scanned his thoughts. What had he inadvertently told them?

Too late to resist as a pair of guards brought the dolly to transport him to a permanent holding cell.

"I can walk, dude."

" _Shut your mouth, prisoner!"_

"You will let me walk to my destination."

"… _We will let him walk to our destination. Let's move._ "

They untied his restraints and escorted him at blaster-point through the Star Destroyer. They were stopped in the main corridor by a fellow guard with a blood-smeared visor.

"Prisoner transfer? I'll take it from here."

"Why?" The two troopers cocked their heads.

"Orders from Commander Phasma."

They shot each other puzzled looks and shrugged. He took Ben by the arm with a blaster tip shoved in his ribs.

"…Get that cleaned up soon," the Stormtroopers motioned to his blood-smear. He didn't acknowledge them.

He drove Ben down a service hallway and pulled him into a maintenance compartment without warning. He turned him around and undid his restraints.

"Can you fly a tie-fighter?"

"What?"

The guard removed his helmet, revealing dark eyes on olive skin.

"Can you fly a _tie-fighter_? I'm asking if you can get out of here on your own?"

"Uhhh, no! Why would you think such a thing? I'm just a moisture farmboy from Tattooine."

"Yeah and I'm the Queen of Alderan, and you're a farmboy who carries a lightsaber…"

The guard shoved Ben's weapon into his chest.

"…But you need to come clean with me right now whether you're the real deal or some dumb kid who got caught up in the wrong quartering act."

"…You need a pilot."

" _I need a pilot_."

A wicked smile worked its way across Ben's face as the Stormtrooper came clean with a big hand over his distressed brow.

"…Look if you can fly us out of here, I can get us passed the deflector shield."

"Say no more, citizen."

"What?"

"I gotchur back brah. Now let's ditch this daisy field and rendezvous with the Republic."

They snuck into the hangar bay where tie-fighters were parked in rank and file on the skyway, not a hard task considering the MP's were the most entry-level boots who couldn't tell an unauthorized access from the Emperor's precession. They boarded a two-manner and fired her up with all the light-checks and safety protocols…Didn't want to look suspicious now.

Ben brought the fighter into a smooth hover, an easy takeoff headed straight for the main gate, until the parking tether caught them in a hard jerk, refusing to detach.

"Oh snap, oh snap, what's wrong, what's wrong…" Ben panicked.

"The clearance codes aren't clearing!"

"Shoulda known clearance always meant _cheap_."

By now their comms were being blown up by the control tower. Ben shut it off while the trooper had a melt down.

"I can't Admin override!"

"Jam it, dammit!"

The tether snapped and they barreled off the on-ramp. As soon as they were free, an entire fleet of fighters took off in their wake and gave chase.

"Incoming! Bogies inbound eight o'clock! Get on my guns!"

"I've never fired before!"

"X is shoot!"

The trooper pulled up the laser cannon while Ben accelerated to attack speed. Laser fire whizzed by both his flanks, but nothing returned on his end.

"Hey! Why aren't you firing?"

"I need to invert the controller!"

" _GYAHH_!"

They twisted into a gyroscope around a wave of lasers. But Ben's gunner cocked the cannon and unloaded hell. He fired everywhere and anywhere until his targeting computer yelled at him, and a wild stream of blast rays connected with an enemy ship. It careened out of control into another fighter, blowing them both sky-high.

"YEAAAAAHHHHH!"

Now _THAT'S_ what Ben called wildfire! He hollered back at his gunner.

"Nice shooting, bro! What's your name?"

"FN-2187."

"You call that a name?"

"Only one they gave me."

"FN? Well how bout Finn?"

"Finn?"

"Yeah Finn!"

"I like it!"

"I'm Ben-Jacen! Ready stabilizers, prepare to make the jump to hyperspace…"

But something stopped Ben…a song like soft, mournful trumpets that stilled his hand. A chaotic internal conflict, and Ben punched the dash.

"AAAAARRRRRRGGGGH! We gotta go back."

"WHAT! Why?"

"Look don't you hear the music? Dammit it means I have to do the right thing again."

"So…!"

"So my droid is down there. My master left me a note on where to find him in her memory banks. I was trained by Luke Skywalker."

"Ohhhhhh shit homie! You didn't tell me you were the prodigal freaking son!"

"Whatever, let's ditch our tail. Ready lasers, all power on rear deflector shield!"

Finn fired a pirouette pattern through the tie-fighter blockade, punching a hole for their escape. Ben swerved a suicidal arc dangerously close to a refuel tender, forcing the enemy fighters to hold their fire while they swiveled through the net. Now it was a straight shot to Tattooine…literally.

Firing commenced now that Ben and Finn were wide open targets. They rocketed in an astrophysical spider-web to lose the entire First Order tie-fighter fleet.

"I'm gonna be sick!"

" _HOLD YOUR STOMACH, SOLDIER!_ We're comin' in hot!"

A lock-on, and a homing missile launched at Ben and Finn. Now they rabbit-ran in whirling stunt-drops to shake the homer. The missile clipped their lower wing-tip and warning lights flashed like life's end

Finn was thrown around in the cockpit as the tie-fighter spiraled down into the atmosphere. As the pressure punched a hole straight through his consciousness, he saw two things before he passed out.

White light.

Darkness.

* * *

 ** _So in case anyone hasn't figured it out by now, Galen Merek is a very bad man, and Kylo Ren doesn't exist…at least the way he did in the movie ;). We will be seeing that longsaber again though. Thanks for the support, and as_** **_always, reviews are returned._**


	5. Chapter 5

Finn came to with his face shoved in hot sand like an archanian ostrich. He coughed up granuals of red clay and let his vision return. _Blurry. Clear. Blurry._

Before him burned a smoldering bonfire of jet fuel and tungsten carbide. Finn leapt up and ran to the wrecked tie fighter.

The cockpit was completely engulfed in black smoke, as green nitrous flame devoured the engine block. Pyroclastic heat sheer was so intense that Finn had to back up. The obvious was clear…

The only friend he'd ever had, gone as fast as he'd come, leaving him with something more valuable than company: a name.

A solemn moment passed before Finn took his new identity and started off to nowhere. The sand dunes made walking like trudging in ankle weights, so he kicked his stormtrooper armor off as he went. Dawning his mesh-underlay gambison and cord trousers that breathed, he ambled unencumbered toward an outcropping of reflective beam spots in the distance. An outpost.

Meanwhile at that outpost, Rey walked along the rows of scrap-hide tents that sold space junk and desert sundries with Bebe trailing her heel. Many had gathered at the arena for tournament combat, a modest prize promised.

Rey stopped and surveyed the fighters—big Mandalorian types with vibrobrands and armor. No one was getting a blaster bolt through that defense.

"Whaddya think, Bebe? How my odds looking?"

The little droid chirped up a low-keyed warning, and Rey shrugged.

"Better than nothing, I suppose."

She stepped into the arena.

Finn scrambled half-dead into the outskirts of the market, but ran like he'd never known life when he saw a watering fountain. He fell right onto it and threw his face in the brown water. A big Ronto looked up from the trough with shoelaces of slobber hanging from its maw. Oh well…

Getting his bearings, he eased into the settlement and was taken aback by the first thing that caught his attention. He saw a thin girl…giving hell to some big armored gladiators with a quarterstaff!

Rey swept low under a fighter's side-swipe, coming up to deck him under the chin with her staff—weak spot. The fighters' armor was hot and heavy and couldn't match her speed with a thin smock. One guy picked her up from behind but couldn't hold her thrashing body still for long. As soon as he put her down, he went sailing over her to the ground. She rushed in cross-checking a stunned fighter at the hips, she knew the hips were the key to body and could knock anyone down with proper technique.

A blunt mace caught her in the back between the shoulder blades, sending her flying to the dirt. She turned around to see a melee weapon staring her right in the face. Match. Applause.

Finn's jaw hit the floor as she picked herself up and collected her second place prize, enough credits to eat for a week. His eyes did a double take though as he caught a ball droid trailing her heel—

"Hey!" He ran up to her huffing and panting, accepting the queer look she shot him. "Where'd you get that droid?"

"I've always had her."

"That's a pretty expensive astrodroid for this backwater rock."

"Go get your own in Mos Eisley! Get lost."

Finn hadn't been the only one watching her fight. A detachment of Stormtroopers caught sight of the droid and raised their blasters.

"There's the droid! Blast them!"

A rain of fire bolts streaked for them as Finn pulled Rey around behind a salvage tent.

"Always had it, huh? You wanna tell that to them too?"

"Look I found it on the tundra! Give it back if they want it."

"No trust me, they'll kill you. Can you fly?"

"Maybe."

"Come on then."

Finn grabbed her and they dashed down an alleyway dodging laser fire. Holding up behind a Ronto stable, he timed the gun jams and reloads precisely before leading her out in the open. _How did he know how to evade Stormtroopers?_

They ran like cath hounds out toward the shipyard.

"We need to get to a transport!" yelled Rey.

"How bout that one?"

"No way! Too much garbage!"

A blast-grenade round slammed into the ship they'd been sprinting for, exploding it sky high in a rain of wreckage. Rey winced.

"The garbage will do…"

They dashed toward a battered ellipsoid seemingly made from slapped-together parts of other ship hulls. The saucer-like luge-body was aerodynamic enough to slice through solar winds, and might be their best shot at outrunning the First Order battle cruisers. The Akrillian script on the aft plating designated it's freight class and call-sign: MILLENNIUM/FALCON.

They ambled up the on-ramp into the ship and barreled to the cockpit. Finn's flight knowledge ended here, but Rey flew into a flurry of calculated switches and component manipulations. She lived in a ship after all.

The craft engines fired and the Antigrav forced against the planet's gravity, achieving full hover. Blaster bolts pinged against the energy shields that absorbed them like water as the ship took off, but not before Stormtrooper radar guns beamed a transmission of their signature to sky-enforcers.

They cleared the atmosphere into to an astronomic etherium, Star Destroyers already there to meet them.

Rey punched the order for the ship to return to it's previous destination, any destination, wherever that might have been. As she gunned the calculations for the surpalight jump, stars elongated in slipstream diaspora, and the whole of the universe streaked by in ley-lines of proto-angelic light.


	6. Chapter 6

Ben woke up face down in the dirt, banthas grazing on tumbleweed grasses and blowing their hay-breath in his face. _What the heck happened?_

He sat up to find himself still on the sand dunes of Tattooine, once again with nothing but the smock on his back and a sunburn. Apparently he'd ejected pretty high up and fell far from the craft's impact site. Good call leveling that _Force Jump_ ability, or he'd have been a pancake.

He held his hand out in a random direction and used his _Force Pull_ ability to no avail. Change position, still nothing.

He walked around for a while like a living metal-detector, flinging his hands in big circles, until his lightsaber finally flew from a random direction smacking him upside the head.

 _OWWWWWW_.

He cursed into his palm as he holstered his ancestral weapon of a long dead order. Well, now that he was once again stranded on this miserable hunk of dusty topsoil, now what?

His answer came as a light interspace shuttle rocketed from the sky to descend in a slow hover toward him. It docked on a flat strip of ground nearby and the loading-ramp descended.

A towering hominid covered in thick fur, with chrome bandoliers slung across his harrowing chest, stepped from the space shuttle onto the blighting sand. Wookies were rarely seen off their forested home-world, where they lived in expansive tree canopies like simple tribespeople. But not only did Ben seem to know this wookie all too well, the wookie seemed to know him.

"Chewie?"

" _RAAAAAAWWWOOOO_!" the wookie called in his growling native tongue. Ben ran up to the big anthropoid who stood with a stern look on his snub face.

"What are you doing here!" It was more of an accusation than a question, as if Ben were defending himself. In response, the wookie crossed his arms, tapping a toe.

"Arrrrggh, okay. So I lifted the Falcon…and maybe some of my trust fund…but everything's under control, I swear."

The wookie hooted and growled a sequence of words.

"My mother sent you to find me? THAT'S NOT FAIR! I'm a man and I can take care of myself!"

Chewie looked around, and Ben glared.

"I can!"

The wookie had heard enough and nodded Ben up the ramp.

"No! I'm not going back. Not until I've made something of myself. Not even then."

A sharp argumentative chortle rebuffed him.

"No! I'm done with training. I don't want to be a priest, I want to be a pirate!"

Chewie pointed a stern finger into the shuttle, ordering Ben inside. But Ben held up his hands in desperation.

"Look, my laptop droid is on the Falcon. We can track it. Would you at least give me an opportunity to save my own skin so that Dad doesn't feed me to a Rancor?"

The big wookie ran a huge paw over his furry head, but finally growled an affirmation.

"Aight then! Let's mount up!"

" _GRRRRRRRR_."

"…Fine, you give the orders."

They ran an ap called _FindMyiFalcon_ and took off in hot pursuit.


	7. Chapter 7

Tau-14—a star port on a massive detached asteroid drifting orbitless in space. Astral charts could never ping its exact location, so only those who had been there knew where it was. For this reason, it was the most ruthless pirate freeport in the known universe…

…This is where the Falcon came out of hyperspace.

Rey docked the ship on an empty loading platform, with no tower transmission—like pulling into a parking space.

They got out in a big grungy warehouse biome with alien merchants setting up shop and ambling about doing whatever. A myriad of mish-mash languages blended together in white noise. Cantinas were abound with glassdancers gyrating in rhythmic routines for space cowboys. The smell of spices and narcotics fumed through the artificial air.

Finn took it all in with the reserved paranoia of an off-world terrorist target.

"Let's take a look around, figure out what to do next."

"Wait." Rey stopped him, turning him about. She displayed the fact that her world had been turned upside down literally a few minutes ago with a suspicious whirl in her eyes. "Who are you?"

"I'm…Finn." He'd never introduced himself before. Something about it felt…right.

"What just happened? Why are those Stormtroopers after my droid, and why are you after it?"

Finn held his hands up, attempting to get a hold of this neuro-psychotic nightmare they'd unintentionally arc-dived into.

"It's really complicated but I'll try to explain. I escaped the First Order with a Jedi Knight, but he died in the crash."

"The Jedi are all dead."

"Well they are _now_. He said his droid knew where THE Skywalker was hiding out. I didn't believe him, but if the First Order is blasting at it, they probably do."

"But Skywalker is a myth. You're a Republic fighter?"

"Err…yeah! Uh, this is what we look like," Finn stuttered, but she was already pulling at his gambison in eager anticipation.

"How long has the Empire been back and from whence did they come?"

"Just got back," he shrugged. "Guess the First Order was the other half of the Empire's army, been on the Outer Rim all this time. Don't mean to cut your 20-Questions short, but I don't think we should hang around The Pirate Bay long enough to catch malware."

"Agreed. Let's get our bearings and get out of here. If the Empire has returned, the Republic will need fighters. Can you take me to them?"

"Y-yeah. Course."

"Great. Let's stock up on rations and ammo, and leave before we draw too much…attention."

Rey caught a sidelong glance of rugged slavers eyeing them from the cantina bar.

They bought some MRE's and a pair of unregistered blasters from a trade-post with Rey's tournament winnings. That was all the sight-seeing they needed.

When they got back to the Falcon, however, they found a massive wookie trying to hotwire the on-ramp.

"Hey!" Finn shouted, but the massive creature turned startled and fired crossbow beams at them. They ducked behind some canisters as another blast came from behind the landing gear. The wookie had human backup.

"Pirate!" Finn yelled in an angry echo at the thieves. "You can't steal our ship!"

A second peeved voice spat back at them from cover behind the landing gear.

"We're all pirates here, dillweed. And this is MY ship!"

"Wait…Ben?"

"Finn?"

"Yoooo!"

Finn shot upright to see none other than his Jedi friend emerge from behind the Falcon, rat-tail hair and all. They ran over and wrapped each other up in the biggest bro-hug in the universe.

"I thought you were dead!"

"Got thrown from the crash site. Am I glad to see you in one piece!" He clapped him on the shoulder like they'd known each other forever.

The little ball droid zipped over and did figure-eights around Ben's legs.

"Bebe!" Ben exclaimed. "You found my droid!"

"I didn't find it, _she_ did."

Finn nodded behind him to Rey, and Ben's eyes lit up.

"He-llo." He slid right over in a suave sweep to shake her hand. "I'm Ben Solo. Best star pilot in the galaxy, Captain of the Millennium Falcon there. You know, the ship that made the Kessel run in less than twelve parsepts. This is my first mate, Chewbacca."

"I'm Rey. Are you the Jedi with the Republic?"

"Certainly am," he stood up much straighter. "Trained by THE Skywalker himself, and the General is my mother. I'm kind of a big deal."

His enthusiasm didn't curb her urgency, and she stood up straight in a different manner, feet apart and hands clasped behind her like she was addressing a superior.

"Finn said he could take me to the Republic. If you are who you say you are, then you could take my registration. With your blessing, I'd like to enlist."

"Well _I_ can take you to the Republic, but this guy here…" he threw an arm around Finn, "…this guy's a hero! Saved my life and defected from the Empire—"

" _Ben Ben Ben!"_ Finn panicked, too late.

"Wait… _what_?" Rey exclaimed.

"He didn't tell…? OH snaps! Oops."

Their conversation was cut short by a gaggle of armed bounty hunters converging on their little gathering. Their ring leader wagged an angry finger at Ben.

" _Jagga-da-bagga Solo. Yabba-dabba-doo!_ "

"Dafuq?"

" _Jiggidy-bobbidy. Dog-blib-blob. Bippity-boppity-boo!"_

"Bee, what's he babbling?"

Bebe chirped a binary code response that Ben was so used to by now.

"I see. Well I could have told you he was crazy. Anyone here speak Basic?"

"You owe us so much money Solo that you might as well sell yourself into slavery."

"Whoa, you got the wrong guy! I'm not Han Solo. I'm Ben-Jacen!"

"Well, in that case, _Ben-Jacen_ is a double-crosser and a card-cheat, and there's like ten bounties on both your heads!"

"Man, so much for sins of the father. Thanks pop."

At that moment, Correllian Mercenaries with Federation Ion-rifles marched into the loading bay with weapons raised. Ben and company put their hands on their heads, slowly, as the detachment lined out staring down the bounty hunters.

"You have no authority here. Leave this docking area."

"He's our quarry! We have a right to claim his bounty!"

"We heard him running his mouth. He's the son of a Republic General and he's on our dock. That makes him ours to ransom."

Ben winced as his friends glared at him.

"The Federation couldn't ransom a ronto for kinrath droppings!"

"You gonna take that from them?" Ben taunted.

"GAAAAWR!" Chewie yelled at him to shut up.

"We have no wish to quarrel with bounty hunters."

"A wise choice. Perhaps some diplomatic arrangement can be reached."

"Not if he slapped your mother and called her a Twi'lek's twat," said Ben.

"HE WHAT?"

And blasters were firing. Ben and company ducked behind some shipping crates, covering down.

"Man, I didn't even need to Force Persuade."

"Let's get inside!" called Finn.

They dashed out toward the ship, but a barrage of vibroblades laid in their way. Ben drew his Lightsaber in a shining crescent sheen that made Rey's eyes fly wide. She'd never seen one before—few had—but minute images flashed before her in flickering flareshots. She had to blink them away to rush into the fray.

Ben whipped his saber in a side-arc to drive a blade wide, then spun in a powerful slash that cut the Corellian down. A diveroll brought him in the center of a bounty hunter pile up, a spinning spiral slash to his feet ended all their lives.

Rey swept an upward slice through a charging band of mercenaries. A masterful flourish knocked a down-bashing sword up and a straight stab threw him back into a comrade. Chewie and Finn unloaded on the clutch of blaster-fighters that hung back for cover fire.

Ben felt a psychic tug in his subconscious, prodding him to watch his back. He whipped around to see a big vibrobrand slicing straight down for his head. But before he could react with lightning precision, a quarterstaff bashed the attacker clear across the bay floor like a battering ram. An orbital ellipsis by Rey's quarterstaff beautifully sent the rest of the mercs flying like marbles, and Ben's jaw hit the ground.

Meanwhile, Bebe rolled right through the fray to lower the on-ramp like a garage door.

They piled into the Falcon and raised the landing gear, rocketing out into orbital space. But they had bigger fish to fry. Star Destroyers were already there, tracking their ship's signature, and at their spearhead, _The Finalizer_.

"Is that The Extender?" Ben asked Finn, who didn't get a chance to answer.

The Super Star Destroyer armed a neutronic cannon. A lilac beam of laser light charged in ionic resonance, blasting Tau-14 and all their pirate scum to space dust. The Falcon narrowly skirted the nuclear wave.

"Whoa!"

"What the hell!"

"Did you see that?"

The phenomenal beam vaporized any evidence that a star system had existed, and turned its homing beacons on the Falcon.

Ben was at the helm with Chewie manning the gauges, but the rear deflector shield shorted and the wookie leapt up to recharge it. Rey jumped in to take over for him as Ben eyed her sidelong.

"Who taught you to fight, Rey?"

"The tundra."

"…We gotta spar sometime."

"If we live."

"It's a date."

Blaster fire streaked past their view-screens in slitting laser lines. A precision turret bolt shattered the environmental simulator thrusters, and they all levitated out of their seats. Chewie hollered like a bleating animals as they went flipping and floating in zero-grav, hit the ceiling, slammed into each other and wrapped themselves up in a big floaty wookie pretzel.

"Ahhhhhhhh!"

"AHHHHHHH!"

"AWWWWRR!"

"Someone get the controls!"

Finn swam over to the computer.

"What do I do!"

"Leap to hyperspace!"

"Where!"

"Anywhere!"

"How!"

"Hit the nav! Just kick it!"

Finn slammed his boot into the dash, and they starscreamed off into the heavens.


	8. Chapter 8

…And came out in Hell.

The Falcon slowed out of warp inside a neutronic supercell, stratovariant micro-explosions assaulting the deflector shield.

"Where the hell are we?" Finn exclaimed as a silica cloud jammed their sensors in a thick pallor of red fog.

Ben grit his teeth as the Falcon jerked a hard right and flew over the scanners.

"I think you just answered your own question. Ladies and gentlemen, this is your Captain speaking. Please fasten your seatbelts as we are in the _Hell Nebula._ "

Technicolor mushroom clouds swirled all around them, circumpolar storms twisting in solar cyclones. Asteroid debris pelted the Falcon's siding like bullet-spray as the world bent around them incoherently.

"I don't understand, why can't we just fly through it?"

" _Dark Matter._ Turns anything it hits inside out, it's all over this cloudburst. We fly into a microcell and we'll be wearing our intestines as fashion statements."

Ben banked around a dust swirl to find another one ready to swallow them. Like phantasmic jaws of mistral Minotaurs, the holochasmic solar cloud meticulously entrapped them in a multicolored maze.

"It's closing in too fast! How do we get out of here?"

"Don't worry, this ship made the Kessle run in less than twelve parsepts, remember?"

"Did you do it?"

"Well, no, and neither did Dad, but—"

"Move—"

Rey shoved him out of the pilot's seat and sat down at the helm. Ben, flustered, ambled into the co-pilot's chair as a deathly focus exuded from Rey's eyes.

She guided the Falcon in a wide swooping arc, down the shaft of a collapsing cyclone, accelerating at the base to ride the gravity burst back up. Ben held his breath as he coached from the co-pilot's seat.

"Just let it go. Don't go with the flow, flow with the go. Wherever your mind says to go, that's where you go…"

Electromagnetic lightning shocks corroded the energy shields to curtains as they whipped through negative space in a gyrating anti-particle accumulation. Ben reached over and clutched her hand.

"…You got this."

He felt a psychic tug in his mind at Rey's touch, and an evil smile crept across his face. He knew they were going to be alright…

Rey hit the jets in a sudden burst of speed that forced everyone against their seats. Swerving around swirling winds like molten chocolate, she hugged the edge of static clouds with an exacting clairvoyance that surpassed the ship's computers.

Visions of riding the Ribbon filtered back to her in monochrome, the Falcon's controls like her devilstick ripping across the sand. She was one with the ship, and the storm, and space as a whole was her mind.

A break in the nebula shown in the aft view window like a ray of hope. Finn pointed to it frantic.

"There's an opening! Hit warp!"

"Are you crazy? Hitting warp into a dust particle will cause a nuclear explosion!" said Ben.

Rey beelined straight for the gap.

" _Easy_ …" Ben warned,

Electric blue particle clouds reached for them like phantom hands, pure dark matter. Rey accelerated to full jets, flipped the Falcon on its side and sliced through the narrow opening to outer space.

"YEEEEEAAAAAHHH!"

Rey gasped as they exploded into hugs and wild celebration. The big wookie roared and they jumped all over him. Out in the safety of open orbit, they paraded into the common room for a well deserved breath.

Recounting the event in excited chatter, Ben broke out a hidden bottle of alien liquor from a smuggling compartment and they all took shots for a job well done. Recreating Rey's flight-patterns in animated hand movements, they bragged as if they'd just defeated a Kryat Dragon.

Settling down, their thoughts returned to the task at hand.

"Alright!" Finn exclaimed. "...Now what?"

"The Republic…the war has started," Rey declared. But Finn put his hands up.

"Whoa hold on, we can't go to the Republic."

"Why so hesitant all of a sudden? You were willing before. What did Ben mean by _defected_?"

A finality cornered Finn in a moral dilemma that he'd already made a decision about. He stood up tall, true, facing Rey with all he was in life.

"Look, I'm not a Republic fighter. I'm a Stormtrooper. I ran away from the Empire because I know what they do. You haven't seen it but _I have._ Fighting them is futile, they kill everything in their path, always have. The Republic got lucky last time but that won't happen again. I know who leads them this time. We have to run far, and never stop."

"Running won't solve anything. They'll catch you sooner or later. We have to stand and fight."

"No we don't, Rey. We have to _live_. Come with me."

"Ben, what do you think about all this?"

Ben mulled in a lounge chair, feinting nonchalant. His hard thoughts were for hard times, and he sighed up at Rey.

"I can take you both as far as Taris. Rey can get a transport to Dantooine and Finn, you can come with me or go wherever."

A shocked look crossed Rey's face. She froze, like she couldn't believe what she was hearing.

"What are you saying?"

"I can't go back to the Republic. Sorry."

"War is at hand. If we don't warn the Republic, millions of innocent people are going to die! Does the holy moral code of the Jedi mean nothing to you?"

That jolted him to his feet. He stood up ready to fight, but caught himself. Temperance was a trait he'd learned but slipped a lot. A wagging finger warned Rey.

"Don't start talking about things you're not ready to finish talking about."

"Why did you leave the order? Or did the order cast you out?"

"None of your business!"

"I can see why. Honor isn't a valued trait among _smugglers_."

Ben took it. He stood before her like a solid, emotionless wall.

"You know what, I like you, and even though you're tearing my balls off now, I'm actually a pretty decent guy. So listen when I say you are way better off coming with me and Finn as far away from that psycho on the little-dick starship, because you have _no idea_ what he will do to you. Or go home, whichever."

"Do you know where I'm from? I'm from Tattooine! That's right, the backwater rock where slavers get their stocks. That's how I learned to fight, and I refuse to wither away and die in the desert. I'm never going back!"

"Well I'm not going back to the Republic either. Who are you going to get to take you?"

Chewbacca stepped up to Rey's side with a hard look that put Ben down.

"Hey, don't take her side!" Ben protested.

"AUUUuuuuwwRRra."

"You go back, Chewie! You tell the Senate the Empire has returned. I'll leave the Republic and maybe Darth Starkiller will follow me."

"RRrwwawwhhraawaa."

"He won't _turn_ me! I don't give a damn! If I wanted anything to do with the Force I'd just got back and be a Jedi! Besides, it's not me he wants, it's my Master."

"WRarp AARph harruumAAW."

"Why do they need me? Dad can handle it, just like last time, big war hero, whoop-de-doo…He doesn't need me."

Chewie took something from his belt, given to him in confidence by an old mutual friend for when the time was right. That time was now. He held his Master's lightsaber out to Ben.

"No! I don't want that! It's not mine and never will be!"

Ben stepped back, but Chewie uttered a single hard word that demanded his respect.

"Destiny? What if I want to control my own destiny? What if I don't want to go back? No one cares what I want! No one cares about me! I'M DONE!"

He knocked the lightsaber out of Chewie's hand and stormed off. It sailed to the ground in a slow-motion cyclone that seemed to bring the entire galaxy to a halt, rolling to where Rey stood motionless.

The cylindrical hilt laid at her feet, while a soft sound like mournful trumpets hummed throughout the Falcon.

"Damn that music again!" complained Finn. "Where's it coming from?"

He went off to find the source.

Rey stared at the floor for a long while, magnetic traction pulling her soul in a conflicted tangle. Her hand moved on its own to take the weapon, and as soon as she touched the cool metal, visions assaulted her senses…

She was ripped into the Apeiron of human consciousness, surrounded by screaming apparitions. She was small, a child, reaching through tears to a figure who walked away. Flashes of deserts, of forests, of deep oceans assailed her, coming to focus on the mouth of a cave.

She was whisked through the darkness, taken before great battles of lightsaber-wielding warriors. The mythical Skywalker—a boy her age—fought the galactic terror Darth Vader in the last rebellion.

She was torn away, further back in time to when Vader himself was Ben's age—turned by anger and sorrow—to when he stood a black phantasm astride the last emperor, and at his side, _his son_.

The dark knight in a stalker helm crossed sabers with his father, and ran away, far away, to someplace Rey was taken first. The visions swept her on a dire quest for truth across the vastness of deep space, beyond the Outer Rim where transmissions fell silent, and signals from the darkness were alien and lost.

In the abyss of dark aphelion, time ceases to exist, and life is a figment of cellular potential. Rey experienced this distal loneliness as a crushing paradox, kinetic energy that warped her to a new planet, a new star system with a new sun, and brought her before...

…A Sith Lord, slight and deadly, cloaked in robes of dark amaranth with a faceshield of moonlight chrome.

Fulminating dread engulfed her, and she knew that if she let herself look upon the entity before her, she would die where she stood. Pulling her psyche back from the Apeiron, back into the hold of the Falcon, she flung the lightsaber and ran.

A galactic pause seemed broken by her flight, a memetic trance receding back to the current date and time. With a solemn rouse, Chewie set the nav coordinates for home.

Bebe found Ben in his bunk wicking away tears. She started to project a hologram message, but he waved her away.

"Delete it."

She beeped and chirped a worried response, to which he sat up fast.

"I said delete it! That's an order!"

The little laptop-unit rescinded the hologram and rolled out of the barracks. She found Rey in the cockpit, slumped into a seat trying hard not to cry. The droid went to the computer terminal, plugged an apparatus into the mainframe, and used the nav's voice to communicate with her.

" _Forgive me, my lady, I do not mean to disturb. In my data-banks lies a message that my keeper's Master left for him. My keeper has ordered me to delete it, but an admin-override is in place. A higher authority wrote a protocol into my programming that requires me to delete this message live, meaning I may play it one last time before it is gone forever. Would you oblige me, mistress?"_

Rey sat up, a willing expression on her face as the droid projected the hologram of an old robed sage onto her lap.

In the common area, the lightsaber remained abandoned on the floor under the dining nook. Finn fished it out and held it in his hand. The nickel-plating was smooth and ornate, beveled with a craftsmanship that rivaled the most advanced weapons in the galaxy. A thin metallic plate extended along the length of the hilt up to the crystal casing. He wrapped his fingers around it, and something felt right.

A searing beam of liquid-light leapt from the hilt, making Finn almost drop the weapon. Humming in a tempered lull, the weapon wove the air around it's philharmonic plasm with an aural temperance, and Finn felt a smile creep across his face.

 _He could strike it._

He deactivated the blade and secured the lightsaber to his belt. If no one wanted it, he'd at least hold onto it for now.

In the cockpit, the hologram receded from Rey's lap and Bebe rolled away. But as Rey's eyes followed her out, she was startled to see Ben leaning against the back wall. She stood up to meet him, having no idea how long he'd been standing there. His eyes held the solemn weight of the universe in ethereal irises, the mark of one who communes with the Force.

But now he seemed sad as he gazed at her in somnolent stillness, a stoic void emanating from his aura into the space between their physical forms.

"Within the heart of every Jedi lies a cave. As a Padawan, you must enter this cave to complete your training, and face your true self and worst fears. But they're not just your own faults and fears, they're those of your Master—the one person most closely bonded to you. My Master wanted me to be strong enough to someday surpass him, to be able to face everything he did and fare better…I failed."

A terrible grief emanated from his spirit that Rey could reach out and touch, so close as if he wanted her to.

"…For three days I huddled naked in that cave, screaming in terror as my Master's nightmares assaulted me. I knew he would come for me, lest I die in that cave. He never came. I made it out alive…"

His brow furrowed to hold back terrible torment, rage beyond the luster of the solar system.

"…But what was lost in there didn't have to be taken. You don't need to lose your humanity in order to be strong. Dark side or not, I don't care anymore. I'm not going back. I'm done being set up to fail. Never again."

He left her with his soul laid bare, and she slumped back into the co-pilot's chair.

In deep space, the shadows are made by pure and adamantine starlight, supplanting the soul from the body. The past consumed by the nether, the future dark and illusive, Rey watched a meteor shower spanning into vantablack void toward the Republic, and war.


	9. Chapter 9

Dantooine—a system with a sapphire atmosphere, orbiting within the habitable zone of a silver super-quasar.

"Stop here, Chewie," Ben ordered over a forested vale outside the oncoming glitterscape. The glistening port city of Endymion had flourished since the victorious rebellion. Now Chewie lowered the Falcon into an unmonitored field ten miles outside the airstrip. What need was there to monitor in Peacetime?

They docked in the grass and Ben got out and walked the other way.

"Ben, wait!" Rey ran after him, with Chewie throwing a fit back at the landing gear.

"I told you! I can't go back."

"You can always go back. You don't have to stay."

"You can never go back, only forward."

"If you're so _done_ with the Jedi, why are you still spouting their code?" She stumbled over the uneven terrain which he glided listlessly across. He was home alright.

"You try having something rammed down your throat for eighteen years."

"You promised you'd take me to the Republic to enlist."

"You're enlisted. Give them my name. They'll believe you."

"Not without you!"

He whipped around as Rey stopped short of running into him.

"You wanna face Starkiller? Then go! Go fly out with the Republic and fight the First Order, because they're not here!"

A blaster bolt slammed into the ground at their feet as the First Order 82nd Airborne Attack Squadron descended from the sky. They'd entered the atmosphere under cloaking devices undetected. There had been no need to monitor in peacetime.

Battalions of Stormtroopers parachuted out of personnel carriers, while robo-turret lasers covered them from the sky. Ben shoved Rey to the ground and stood over her with Lightsaber drawn, pinging blaster fire back at the paratroopers with the psion blade. Once they touched down, Rey dashed out at them with her quarterstaff poised to strike.

Chewie fired his crossbow from cover behind the landing gear, while Finn jumped on the turret inside the Falcon, gunning a tirade at ground forces in potmark explosions. Dirt and stormtroopers went flying as Finn's aim shattered the tranquil grass.

An ion cannon nest had been set up and fired point-blank at the Falcon's defense systems. Aft guns were damaged and Finn caught a nasty spark from the controls. Now they sat defenseless in an open field where no one knew they were there.

There was one last lifeline. He knew Ben would kill him, but if he didn't do something, they were dead anyway. He sent out a distress signal.

Rey and Ben fought back-to-back on the ground, ducking under each other's blade swipes to switch positions. The flood of enemy troops kept coming hard and determined, and it was only a matter of time before Ben and Rey's steadfast endurance faltered enough for someone to get a stun hit in. Everyone stopped as a sonic wave ripped over the terrain.

Republic X-Wing fighter jets streaked across the clouds in illuminating rays of light. They came at attack speed in spearhead formation, unloading a blanket of isofire rounds on the enemy personnel carrier to explode it sky-high.

Finn rushed out onto the battlefield to see that his distress call had worked, but Stormtroopers immediately fell upon him with shock sticks. Without thinking, he grabbed the lightsaber from his belt and struck it straight through two oncoming comrades.

A third Stormtrooper stood back aghast, a battle lance drawn for attack. He recognized his fellow comrade who wore the Stormtrooper underarm or and now wielded a holy lightsaber. His blood ran viciously hot.

"Traitor!" he yelled, launching himself on Finn in harrowing down-bashes. Ben whirled his saber up and around, desperately dodging and deflecting lance swipes. He ducked under a slash, feeling the slice of air against his cheek, and sunk his hit blade into the Stormtrooper's chest plate. He went down with a gasp of disbelief, and all Finn's ties to the First Order were officially severed.

Rey felt the warmth of Ben's back against hers as she broke contact, side-swiping an advancing trooper. When she whipped her quarterstaff back around, it slammed head-on into an indigo lightsaber, and dark Stalker armor beheld her.

A burst of lightning shot from his hand, immobilizing and stunning Rey. When Ben ripped around and saw Darth Starkiller, a powerful beam of dark energy threw the young acolyte back thirty feet.

Rey fell listless into Starkiller's arms, out cold. He scooped her up like a child and carried her in a ginger embrace back up the on-ramp of his transport.

"Hey!" Ben shot up, sprinting after them. "It's me you want!"

He cut his way through a torrent of Stormtroopers, painting their white armor red with the rage of his blade. He stood below the exhaust trail as Starkiller's ship took off into the atmosphere.

"Not her! ME!"

The Republic jets dispatched with the remaining ground troops and the fighter's returned to base. Prisoner vessels and admin-hawks hung back to assess damage.

Gold Leader's command cruiser touched down in the grassy knoll, and out stepped a hardened warrior with an air of heroism gone wrong. He wore a Corellian hide-vest and marauder's trousers with double-holsters for quick-drawing. Ever so inconspicuously, the silver General's Star was pinned to his pocket, accented by his piercing eyes and salt-and-pepper hair. The resemblance was uncanny. Here was Ben's father.

"Junior, what the HELL did you get yourself into?" he strode toward Ben with an authoritative stance that made his son wince.

"Dad! We have to rescue Rey!"

"Who?"

At that moment, an adjacent transport touched down opposite Han's and out stepped a slight woman with hair looped in tight braids around her head, accompanied by a gold-plated humanoid assistance droid. Five feet tall, fair as the stars, and angry as the fabled Luxor Daemon on a haunted system, Princess Leia Organa of Alderan marched toward her son.

"BEN-JACEN SOLO JUNIOR!" she bellowed in an iron tone. He flinched but not for long.

"I know! I'm grounded! Hurry we gotta rescue Rey!"

"Who?"

"Eh, a girl, but I think—"

"Girl!"

"Wait, _girl_?" Han turned to his boy, seeming much more interested. Leia shot him a fierce glare.

Finn came running up from the Falcon, but the eager assistance droid cut him off and promptly introduced himself in an upbeat, accented voice.

"Hello! I am C-3PO, Human-Cyborg relations—"

Chewie shoved the droid aside and hurried to Han, who was irate and red in the face.

"Chewie, I tell you to search one side of the Galaxy while I searched the other and bring my son home, and you brought the Empire back with him!"

Chewie protested to his old friend, but Finn stepped forward.

"It wasn't any of their fault, it was mine."

"Who's this?" asked Han. Ben's face turned stark pale as he leapt in front of Finn.

"No one! Hitchhiker, picked him up on Tau-14. We smoke together—"

"I'm FN-2187, a Stormtrooper under the command of Lady Phasma. I defected the First Order in an attempt to rescue Ben Solo."

Ben slapped his forehead.

Han stood taken aback, along with everyone else in their assembled fleet.

"This true, son?" It wasn't immediately clear who he was addressing.

"No—Yes," they said at the same time.

Han rubbed a hard hand over his speckled hair. Knowing this information, they did the only thing honorable, law-abiding citizens could do…they arrested him.

An Emergency War Counsel was convened in the Senate that same afternoon. Leia took center podium to address the Republic representatives.

"Ladies and Gentleman of the Senate, I am Princess Leia Organa-Solo of the former consulate of Alderan. A grave evil has returned from whence we know not, but it has brought with it a hunger for vengeance fueled by the Dark Side of the Force. We must strike hard and we must strike now, lest we find ourselves catapulted into another vehement war that can have no assured victory."

"Wait! You can't do this!" Ben flew to the center of the amphitheater, addressing the congregation in dire desperation.

"Sit down, boy," the House Speaker demanded. "You're interrupting a high-assembly, which carries the penalty of—"

"I'm Ben-Jacen Solo, son of the General and Princess Leia, and I'm automatically allowed two minutes of speaking time by birth."

"Well you've got about forty-five seconds left of that, Junior. Get to it," Han badgered from the sidelines, and Ben scrambled.

"This isn't the Empire. Darth Vader is dead. This is the First Order, headed up by Darth Starkiller—his son."

That got their attention all right.

"…We can't blow them out of the sky until we rescue the girl they've kidnapped."

"Your two minutes are up, kid. You're taking this game into overtime."

"I'm the last Jedi Apprentice. But Rey is Force-sensitive. I can feel it. Now Starkiller has her aboard the Extender, and if he turns her, we'll be dealing with two of the most powerful Sith Lords in the galaxy instead of one."

"The Extender?"

"Ehh, the Finisher or something. I forget what his ship is called."

Violent chatter erupted among the delegates until a senior analyst stepped forward to speak.

"Our premier intelligence tells us that the Extender harbors an isomiotic weapon capable of destroying star-systems, and may in fact be the prototype for the Death Star we destroyed in the Rebel Wars. If this is the case, we will have to move swiftly to dismantle the Extender before it penetrates our defenses."

Ben held in discreet laughter. He couldn't believe he'd gotten the Senate to call it the Extender in that context.

Despite the minority of dissenters Ben had managed to rile up, the vote was swift and unanimous. A resolution was passed, a Declaration of War was granted, battle plans were drawn up, squad leaders were chosen, and Ben was sent to his room.


	10. Chapter 10

Rey awoke strapped to an interrogation chair that smelled like Ben. Thick walls of sensory isolation steel encased a detention chamber large enough to fit a medical ward in. This must have been for high-priority targets who would be subject to horrors that took an entire team to inflict.

A field-view window showed a thin strip of interstellar void, as if to suck the hope out of the prisoner subjected to it. And seated by that window, gazing at her through a sightless Stalker helm, was Starkiller.

"Where am I?" she demanded. His calm aura absorbed her anger like solar waves.

"Aboard my ship, The Finalizer, a new power in the Galaxy."

"At least until the Republic gets to you. Now they know you're here."

"...Good."

His voice was monosynthetic, filtered through an audio vox that dropped the resonance to a deep baritone. For its demonic choir, it was almost tender.

"You wish to kill me," he said. It wasn't a question.

"I'm being hunted by a creature in a mask. Wouldn't you?"

"We all wear masks, some less obvious than others. The murders, traitors, and thieves you call friends wear the most pronounced."

"Oh yeah? Take off your helmet."

A long pause, thick silence. He reached around the back of his helm and depressurized the seal. In a careful maneuver, he slid the mask over his head, setting it by his side.

His face was a calm vestige of hydrogen skies, with eyes like indigo nebulas ringed in a deep charcoal pallor. Fine features on a flowing jawline and a religious attention to military grooming gave off an air of wise power, he looked not much older than she was. A hard man, a deep man, but a cruel man would sport an uglier mug.

"You won't be needing those," he said as he waved a subtle hand, and the seat locks on her wrists released.

She sat up as he rose, presenting himself to her.

"Who are you?" she glared.

"To the Empire, I am a nameless shadow that stalks the apex of deep space. To the Republic, I am the ghost of Darth Vader returned to reap vengeance for his murder. But to my father, and to you, I am Galen Merek."

"You're Darth Starkiller? You're a terrorist and will stand trial for your crimes."

"Perhaps, but not tonight."

He went to a holo-projector in the center of the room, a dark invisible aura shrouding his steps like a black oil-cloak in his wake. She leapt from the chair to put a wall at her back defensively. A geographic star map danced on the durasteel walls like golden ley lines as Starkiller spoke to Rey in a velveteen voice.

"You wish to know me? I will oblige. I grew up on Korriban, the ancestral home world of the Sith. When I was a very young boy, Republic and Imperial forces chose this planet to hold a great clash. My entire village was desecrated, while I alone survived by means I would discover later. The Empire was victorious in that battle, and their commander, a powerful Sith Lord, became my adoptive father—Darth Vader.

"He raised me in his image, perhaps to replace the son he'd given up, and taught me the truth of the Force. But as I grew, I began to question his teachings. I sought out their source, a legendary Sith Warrior known as Darth Revan, who lived thousands of years ago. I was desperate to know the true way, as eons mean nothing in the depths of dark space. Thousands of years could be as recent as yesterday in the quantum stream of time. I set out for the Outer Rim in search of this Dark Lord Revan."

"And did you find this illusive Sith Lord?"

Starkiller's eyes trained on Rey, looking on her through downturned brows as if he knew something she did not.

" _Yes_."

Rey cocked her head.

"How? No one has ever been able to reach the Outer Rim in a lifetime, and someone who lived thousands of years ago—"

"Forget everything you know about life and its measures. A true mastery of the Force will forever elude any who seek to understand it through the tangible and the concrete. The Universe is a sentient entity of which we are all microcosms of potential, aimlessly drifting in a rift of ignorance. I transcended the boundaries of space and time by leaping to hyperspace through a supermassive black hole, the first and only astral explorer who has ever attempted such a maneuver and succeeded—twice."

"Congratulations, I'm sure the Republic will award you the Medal of Sciences from your prison cell."

He chuckled, sashaying in a regal stride toward her.

"And how might I have the pleasure of addressing my honored company tonight?"

A long pause. Her suspicious glare trained on him like the arced moon-daggers of the tribe that raised her.

"I'm Rey."

" _Rey_? Of course. You would be."

"What does that mean?"

"It means that I know more about you than you could ever know about yourself. The Dark Side is strong in our kind. We are very much alike, you and I."

"You don't know a damn thing about me!"

"Do I, Rey? The memories you see every night in your dreams, of being abandoned on a strange desert world. Those are in fact your memories, but they are not of Tatooine…"

A gasp. Images flooded her vision, cold anxiety seizing her by the throat. She stepped back as he stepped forward, advancing on her through the building dread of denial.

"Yes. Let it flow, let the past float back to you..."

As he stood in her shadow, eclipsing her darkness, that knowing stare bore into her like the bane of absolute truth.

"You were born on the Outer Rim, an illegitimate child to a powerful Jedi who sold you into slavery to keep you a secret. If word of your existence spread, your father would have been excommunicated. You escaped, you survived, you became strong. You trained at the Jedi Enclave with a man named Malak, your closest confidante, who betrayed you, and you slew him for his treachery. To escape your despair, you froze yourself in carbonite, and drifted for many light years in deep space where time ceases to exist, aboard your ship, which crash-landed on Tatooine…twenty years ago…"

Her eyes widened against his gaze like ice-picks, his words like serrating saber light. He stepped into her space like a planet eclipsing its small moon, impending dread closing in like a fallen meteor.

"It's you, Revan. The cryostasis will have taken many years to degrade enough to thaw you, and no doubt you've been wandering in a state of amnesia ever since."

"…No…"

"We have seers and psychologists who will reverse your mind-wipe and restore your identity. I will give you your power back."

"But why help me?"

"…You have something to teach me, Master, and on my life I'm going to learn it."

She shook in bound delirium, the whole of space closing in about her. Tightness in her chest, blurred vision, arrhythmic heart rate shot ripping electric lines up her limbs. Starkiller whisked toward the door of the interrogation cell.

"Come with me. I will show you the true nature of the Force."

He commanded, she obeyed without meaning to, trotting to keep up with him in a whirling state of shock. They marched down the detention center corridor out into the common wing, where all personnel aboard the Finalizer went about their business.

"What the Jedi refer to as the Dark Side, or the Left-Hand Path, we know simply as the Truth," Starkiller said as they walked. "While the Jedi preach blind compassion, we follow a mantra of ruthless utilitarianism. We cull the weak and the unfit, mercifully, as their lives are painful otherwise and bring pain to others around them. In retrospect, this actually allows us to be more compassionate, for we know that when we extend our hand in aid, it is deserved and appreciated."

Stormtroopers bowed as they passed, but they were not bowing to Starkiller, instead they made it absolutely clear that they were bowing to Rey. She caught her breath as Starkiller continued his lesson.

"We do not treat others the way we would want to be treated, but rather how we would _expect_ to be treated. This is the way of nature, against which all other philosophies fall to failure, and if embraced rather than resisted, ensures that you will not fail either. We all have within us the primal darkness of our primeval ancestors. Rather than repress this inevitable truth, the Dark Side teaches to accept it as part of ourselves, and work around it rather than against it. This True Way is the only way to order and harmony in the galaxy, against which the Jedi would deny their deceptive nature, hiding behind a guise of blanket humanism."

"But the Jedi are good, noble, protectors of light in the galaxy. Everyone knows this."

"You should ask your friend Ben Solo why he left the order."

"…He said his Master abandoned him."

"Of course. An order of Knights so noble as the Jedi would never stoop so low as to leave an apprentice behind. When my father took me in, he came close to killing me several times, but he never turned me out. Even when I ran from him, he never left me. The last thing he said to me was that he was always one inch away from me. I still feel his presence near me to this day."

"Sounds like an overbearing parent," she scoffed, to which Starkiller stopped in place. He stood broad-shouldered and tall, yet gazed at the ground, as if he could see the swirl of memories like galactic spirals before his waking eyes.

He looked up, baring his soul to the girl before him.

"I'm going to kill my brother for murdering our father. I am going to kill Luke Skywalker."

She eyed him with the cold awe of disbelief, still scrambling to wrap her mind around this velocosmic nightmare.

"You scour the star reach in search of a legend, now you quest to kill a myth. Are you living in your imagination or just pretending to?"

"I found you, didn't I?"

"I'm not who you think I am!"

She stamped her foot in frustration. There was no getting through to him, and he would not be sueded.

"You _are_ Revan. You have no fear, even in the face of one of the most powerful Sith Lords in the galaxy. To prove it to you…"

He whisked down a central byway to an operations bay, throwing silent hand-signals to tech-officers in black uniforms who relayed instructions down the line. The Finalizer's mass-eyelet telescope aimed at precise coordinates in deep space, pulling the planet Tatooine up in the view field.

"…I've decided to give you a demonstration of this battle station's capabilities to jar your memory."

"Wait, no!" Rey lurched forward. "Someone's supposed to come for me there."

"You're confused, Revan. Your recollections were not of Tatooine."

"But if you tracked me down, so can he!"

A delicate finger grazed the side of her cheek.

"My lady, whomever you were waiting for on that forlorn world, you know in your heart, they are not coming back. It was thousands of years ago."

"I don't believe you!"

"You will..."

He threw a nod to the lead technician, who waved signals that relayed down an exacting chain of command in dangerous precision. Like clockwork, a double set of keys was inserted into a weapons system, a blah-code was input, and an alarm blared like banshee wailing.

Everyone anywhere crowded to windows and view screens. Rey saw a lithographic sheen engulf the exterior of the Finalizer, and at its apex where the sword tip resided, a marblesque pendant of neuromagnetic laser gathered in a culminating charge. The double keys were turned counter-clockwise, and a harrowing line of scorching light extended like the finger of a deity out into the vastness of open space.

Tatooine showed on the parascope projection in a bright circumference when the radiation strata hit. The planetary mass accelerated in orbit, cleaving along its fault lines in proto-angelic rays of firelight. Eruptions of molten carbon jettisoned into a panegyric atmosphere, and in a catastrophic burst of hyperboreal laser light, the planet exploded in a supernovic starburst.

Ray threw herself at the window in massive sobs, heaving in great wailing cries that echoed in the cold warship's steel hull. A ripping pain tore her insides asunder, crying for a long time against the pyroblast glass of the Finalizer.

She struggled to her feet with bleeding laser eyes trained on the looming Sith Lord. Her angry breaths and shaking hands held themselves back in a building fury as she shook her head at the dark commander.

"You can't keep me here!"

"Not with all the power of the Force could I bind you against your will. You're free to do as you like."

A pause. Surprise. Was he…letting her go?

Tentative steps, she eased her way past him, and he made no move to apprehend her.

"Come back, though," his voice stopped her. "I have the answers you seek."

Without acknowledging him, she took off running into the Finalizer.


	11. Chapter 11

Back on landfall, Ben pouted cross-legged on his twin bed with Buzz Lightyear covers—a popular children's program in the Republic. His mother kept his room the same as it had been when he'd left for training, like a shrine, like he'd died.

His vox-com vibrated on his pillow. Text message.

" _Yuu. Owt side."_

What the hell?

" _Who is this?"_ Ben messaged back.

" _AUUrr_."

" _Chewie? Are you TEXTING me?!"_

Chewie, the greatest tech-savant in the Galaxy when it came to sabotaging war machines and jerry-rigging a hyperdrive in the middle of a shoot-out, but with toys like video games and StarNet chats, he was as clueless as Ben's dad.

Ben ran out of his room to the roof, as Mom and Dad were downstairs with practically the entire Republican Guard. Double-take to make sure no one was taking a smoke-break, and he Force-Jumped down to the back lawn. He found the big furry co-pilot peeking out from behind a tool shed.

"Chewie! What are you doing?" Ben threw his hands out, but Chewie shushed him in a panicked whine. After composing himself, he dropped a Death Star keychain in Ben's hand—the keys to the Falcon.

Ben's eyes were a Milky Way of awe.

"But why? My Dad's already irate. He's your best mate. Why are you going against him to help me be a reckless teenager?"

Chewie gave him a knowing look, and said nothing, while Ben lit up in prophetic revelation.

"Destiny."

The wookie threw the kid a good luck smirk, and Ben took off prowling like a burglar toward the central detention facility.

In cell block two, Finn sat on a bench behind bars with his head in his hands. The bailiff reclined on a swivel chair, until a rumbling sound at the other end of the unit got his attention. He stood to investigate, but a quick hand shot to the base of his skull in gripping pressure. Ben cupped the struggling guard's neck until he passed out in harmless sleep. That actually hadn't been a Force ability, but a bit of Jeet Kun Do his Master taught him from the wayward Enclave era.

Fin shot to his feet as Ben grabbed the keys.

"Ben! What are you—"

"Come on, bro. We've got a war to win."

They stole out into the city streets of Endymion, paved with piezoelectric firestones that emanated a magnetic field for hover-sprinters. Spires of crystal and alabaster spanned the skyline's azimuth, creating a noctilescent stratosphere of chromospheric glass above the port. That piece of junk Falcon was docked in the most elaborate holding container.

They bypassed the main lock with a rainbow table hack, and swept past the fleet manager's quarters like space mice. A click on Ben's keychain and the Falcon beeped twice, aft light flickering on and off. They ran up the on-ramp into the cockpit. No time for a systems check. Take off.

By the time security personnel scrambled outside, and radar technicians alerted Air Traffic Control, the Falcon and crew were already at Mach 3 into the stratosphere.

The computer locked on the largest non-land mass in near space and directed the nav straight there. The Finalizer leered like an unholy primarch awaiting Judgement Day in silent absolution. It didn't take long for a stellar tractor beam to lock onto the Falcon and reel her in like Gungar bait.

Flight systems were overridden, emergency backup generators shorted out, and every alarm on board screamed like death was upon them. In a slow tow of transcranial magnetism, the Falcon was pulled against her will into the mouth of the mothership.

But outside the Finalizer's receiving bay, exposed to the void of deep space, two survival suits made their way along the outer paneling hand-over-hand in zero-grav.

"Decoy? You sly dog!" Fin ribbed as he crawled along the battle cruiser's exterior beside Ben.

"They'll be scanning that thing for hours, and now we've got a way out when it hits the fan."

"I don't get it. How are we not getting sucked in by the tractor beam with these space suits?"

"3D printed. We're golden!"

They ducked into a salvage hatch that lead to a service airlock. Finn had done more than enough sanitation detail as a Stormtrooper. He knew the access codes like the alphabet.

Once through the droid loading deck, they stripped the suits and swiped a side-blaster from a maintenance footlocker. Through janitorial quarters and salvage recycling bays, they snuck their way past non-sentient robotic sentries into the organic wings of the Finalizer and general population, which was where Search and Rescue got interesting.

Fin knew the layout enough to get them around byways where troops would be likely to tread. The Officer's Wing would be deserted around meal time. Never count on higher-ups to work harder than they had to. One exception stopped them dead in their tracks, making them jump behind a trash canister.

Commander Phasma Galatea, the bloody harbinger of war, the left hand of death herself strode down the axis corridor toward Officer's Quarters. She'd already turned in her phaser and blaster rifle, and her personal sidearm would be hidden in her cabin. But right now, she was a walking slaver's easy-catch.

They leapt from the canister grabbing her.

"Hold up, sister! There's been a change in the Chain of Command."

Fin jammed the blaster right up against the underside of her helmet's chin.

"That's right. I'm the boss now. I'm Big Papa. Me—"

"Easy Fin," Ben warned.

A swift thrust hit Fin in the solar plexus as a hand wretched the blaster away. Fin didn't know how, but he found himself wrist-locked and sailing back into Ben. They both landed flopped on the floor with the Commander of the First Order at point blank range and pissed.

"Are you here to kill Starkiller?" she demanded, pistol trained on them in an almost psychic precision.

"Ah, pfft, whah?" Fin stammered. "Um, nnnnn—"

"Yes," answered Ben. Fin choked on his tongue.

The pistol came up, and the Commander undid the seal on her uniform, removing her helmet to reveal citrine-blue eyes over olive skin and hair dark as a black hole. One eye was crossed with heterochromic ice-markings. Cursed.

"Then follow me. I will help you."

She started down the empty corridor with conviction as Ben and Fin scrambled after her in a confused heap. She talked as she walked.

"Starkiller is universes more vicious than his father, and uninhibited by health. He seeks to destroy the philosophy of Free Will. He must be stopped."

Ben couldn't believe their luck.

"No offense, Commander, but what's it to you? You're high-ranking and nothing can touch you, and you don't seem like the altruistic type."

"Galen Marek saved my life in combat, when I was first kidnapped into the Order. I fell in love with him and vowed to serve him unquestioningly. I kept my oath when he attacked my home world. He lead me all the way across the Galaxy, through unforetold wars and countless genocides, forced my hand with the promise of his heart. I climbed all the way through the elite ranks of Stormtroopers, destroyed men who would deny me on my sex, defended legions and bled for the rank of Commander, all to get him to notice me. After all I have done and sacrificed for him, he cares nothing for me, or anyone. His only aim is to use people. I swear on my murdered tribe, on the name of Skywalker, his family name, I will kill him myself."

"Well, that's…inspirational."

She lead them down secret passages requiring codes that took a full minute to input (and she had them all memorized). Their anxiety spiked when Fin didn't recognize what part of the ship they were in. Was she leading them into some forsaken part of the hull where they wouldn't even be able to blast their way out of?

She brought them up through a door straight into Operations. Technicians at computer panels crunching numbers didn't even look up. Fin and Ben held their breaths like giant Kryat lizards ambling through the room while everyone's attention was diverted. .

She hit the door for a side radar room and lead them in to meet the tech at the coms; a little scrub with scraggly hair, a long face and a nose that could poke someone's eye out. He was wearing a fedora.

"This is Matt, the _Radar Tech."_

"I was supposed to have a bigger part in this story."

"Shut up, Matt!" she slapped him upside the head.

"We have to find Rey. Can you pull up the live feeds?" Ben asked.

"The prisoner. She'll be on the detention level. Special Cell 1."

Matt pulled up the viewfield with a very pouty look on his face.

Nothing.

"Execution Wing 1," Phasma ordered. Still nothing.

"Matt, bring up the execution logs for today's date."

"They keep _logs_ for that heck?"

"For disposing of clones," Fin clarified. Ben's face turned a subtle shade greener.

"No record of her. Your girl is alive. And here somewhere, free."

"After we find her, we need to blow the ship, else they'll come after us for dinner and the Republic as an entrée."

Matt made the most peculiar face up at them.

"I'll have you know, because you obviously don't know already, that your plans are asinine. This ship is indestructible."

"Famous last words," said Fin.

"Aight, where's the trench to the proton-torpedo pad? I have to hijack a Tie Fighter to skirt the surface and blow the reactor."

"Why in the living hell would you think of doing that?"

"Well that's how it worked last time, and the time before that, and the time before…"

"This battle station is the original Apocalypse-Class Destroyer," Phasma informed them. "Drop sticky bombs down the poop-shoot all you want, you'll short out some circuit boards. There's only one weapon powerful enough to destroy this ship, and that's this ship. We'd need to get the big gun to fire back on itself somehow, and hell if anyone can figure out how."

Ben and Fin shot each other wide-eyed gazes. Phasma looked at them imploring as an evil grin crept across Ben's face.

"Set coordinates for the _Hell Nebula._ "

But Matt coughed up a lung.

"No way! Do you think I'm stupid? Is that what you think? You do, don't you! I will not be aboard this vessel when it self-destructs."

"Matt, shut the hell—"

"Do it and head to the Falcon. We'll take you both with us. Deal?"

"Wait a minute," Fin stopped Ben, "how do we know she won't alert the whole station to us?"

"She won't. I can feel it."

"Man she's been hipped to the most powerful Sith Lord in creation. She can fool an acolyte like drinking tea."

At that, Phasma pulled a chain with a barcode from around her neck and held it out to Ben.

"This keycard will open any door in the Finalizer, and by the way, Jedi, Galen Merek is left-handed."

Ben took the card and waved it over the door keypad, which slid it open instantaneously. Fin pickpocketed his blaster pistol back from the Commander as he ran through, while Ben eyed her with a mischievous glint.

"I knew you weren't lying."

Something told them he didn't really.

They used the keycard to access the secret tunnels, all droid serviceways, which would explain why no one used them. Down in the belly of the Finalizer, where wires and pipelines tangled like the intestine of a mechanical dragon, they wandered aimlessly while keeping an eye out for service hatch openings to the surface.

Now without a heading, Ben was Force-scanning, using his mind's eye to sense Force-sensitive lifeforms. Without warning at an intersection of five crossways, Ben halted.

"Come on, man, wake up," Fin tapped him, but Ben's face was a blank stare, eyes like laser beams ahead.

"Hey, do me a favor? Take the lee side of this wing, do a full sweep and head back to the Falcon, but whatever happens, don't come back through this way, alright?"

"Now wait a minute—"

He put his hand on Fin's shoulder.

"If you're my bro, and you care about me, you'll do this for me."

Hesitation, an urge to argue. Fin swallowed it, not knowing why, and nodded. He took off to follow Ben's directions. There had been no deception, Ben hadn't used any Jedi mind tricks, Fin had just…done it.

Ben stayed there alone in the corridor for a long moment, staring into the door ahead like the depths of deep space. Something told him he had always been meant to walk through it, and that everything he'd learned in life up was for now.

An affirming breath, he waved his keycard over the access panel and entered with his heart beating in his ears.

There stood a man like a midnight sun, draped in robes of vantablack and rouge, a carnelian Lightsaber in hand. Starkiller loomed an embodiment of Hyperion, a being of carnal reverence and dark beauty. His eyes were starlit aphelion, watching, awaiting his prey.

Ben approached like an acolyte to an altar, something final coming over him with each step. A feeling of majestic awe dulled his senses, but he was aware of a Sith Lord's power over the mind. A meditative technique cleared the fog as he willed his way forward, a singular fluid concept flowing through him like life itself.

 _Destiny_.

With an understood agreement between foes, he eased his own saber from his belt, striking it from a respectful distance against the rudy backdrop of machine lights and reflective titanium glare. A deep breath, a still moment, time froze on its axis.

They rushed each other akin to planets exploding, whirling whips of crashing fraylight bashing off their blades. They sheered in monumental arcs of pulsating fire as they jockeyed for position. While Ben fought with two hands on his hilt, Starkiller fought with one.

"So that's why you left. He did abandon you."

A feral slash knocked Starkiller's lightsaber up, but the taunting persisted.

"It's not the first time he's turned on _his family._ "

Ben crash-locked up with Starkiller's blade, crossing their searing beams of razorlight in a scatterheart star. The Sith Lord flicked his wrist, circling the acolyte's saber up and away. As Ben swiped back, Starkiller whipped him off his attack lines with minimal effort as if he were instructing the boy, a resonating tap, tap, tap against Ben's sword.

"You're going to let him get away with that?"

Ben diverolled away from a down-slash and recovered in low-guard. Oil cloak furling like black wings, the Sith Lord flowed across the ground to bash-shatter Ben's block in a fulminating spiral-slash, chopping down on Ben's upslice like swinging an axe that knocked the young acolyte to a knee.

"You'll always be huddled in that cave, Young One, naked and alone. Shouldn't he be there instead?"

Ben rushed in fragmenting slices, slitting cuts like scorpion tails. But his anger grew, beginning to get the best of him, beginning to throw him off.

"Does _your father_ know what he did to you?"

Another slash, another rebuff. Whirls of crimson sheerlight traced leylines like blood splatters in the dark.

"Give him up. He's long since given up on you."

Starkiller drove him back toward the faunt, a peripheral drop into the engine mechanisms of the deeper machine. In a desperate Force Jump, Ben back-somersaulted up to a catwalk above. A deep breath, sweat soaking the collarline of his acolyte's tunic, he peered down onto his stoic adversary with eyes of innocence.

 _Do we really have to do this?_

He knew Starkiller couldn't hear him. His defense against a mere acolyte's thoughts was far too high, walled off behind a calloused steel heart. Starkiller strode forth in encroaching darkness, snuffing out Ben's ephemeral light.

"Revenge is not the way of the Jedi, but it's not revenge, it's justice."

A swirling lightsaber throw hurled up at Ben, who ducked it as it sliced a support cable. The catwalk snapped, careening to the floor as Ben tumbled off. The saber returned to its master's hand to meet Ben in a whirling tirade of feyslices at ground-level. Starkiller moved in shadows so fast and fluid that Ben couldn't even see him, falling back on blind defensive sword-forms from his training. His vision blurred, lungs burning in adrenaline-edged exertion, he resorted to running back to catch his breath. A defensive about-face, eyes whirling in exhaustion, saw the Sith Lord unmoving. Starkiller did not pursue him.

Instead, the Master of the Finalizer stood at bay, weapon down and brow unfurled. He watched Ben recover himself, drenched in a rage of sweat that reeked of fear and despair.

"It wasn't your fault, son."

Ben stood shaking, his lightsaber trembling in hand. As Starkiller approached, he prepared to attack, mustering all his remaining strength and courage. But he faltered, in the face of his adversary he lowered his weapon, letting his head sink down with a resounding sigh. A gloved hand fell like a flower upon his shoulder.

"Let's make him pay…together."

Ben's eyes rose to the dark Sith, and found only compassion staring back at him.

But at that moment, Fin and Phasma ran through the doorway, a geo-locator tracking her keycard. She wasn't as honest as she claimed. Fin snatched the lightsaber from his own belt, rushing forward.

"Snap out of it, Ben!"

A blue line screamed toward Starkiller, who whipped around smashing it away. Phasma dropped into combat stance, firing her plasma rifle full auto at Starkiller, who deflected the beams telekinetically. A huge powerslash threw Fin back into Phasma, sending them toppling across the cleated ground.

Ben came to in a whirl of momentary psychosis, crashing down on Starkiller's blade in monumental rage-slashes. But mercy was gone. Starkiller twirled his saber in a phenomenal arc that caught Ben's weapon between the hilt and crystal, smashing the resonator and destroying the blade. He shoulder-checked Ben back into his friends, and all three lie sprawled on the floor like idiots.

Starkiller threw out his hand to summon the legendary lightsaber at Fin's feet. The weapon flew from the ground, but not to Starkiller's hand. It sailed past him to another held aloft behind.

Rey stood at the entrance to their impromptu arena, the lightsaber of legacy flying to her grasp. Ben and his friends sat up with awe-filled eyes, and a deep, immaculate glow lit up Ben's face.

" _I knew it!_ " he whispered.

Rey stood tall in the dull temporal light, bathed in an aural hue of sacred technology. Her lightsaber struck on her mental command, casting a parhelion umbra around her silhouette like a halo.

Starkiller stood in momentary dissonance before striding to meet her as she rushed to meet him unafraid.

A phenomenal slash from both blades met in a stratovariant cross, matched in terse rage with sparks flown. She tapped his blade in quick wisps to match his flurry. He was strong but Rey was fast on delicate feet, floating to his weak spots like some otherworldly energy guided her. Starkiller smiled for the honor.

He slashed down as she spun away into her own chop, he arced up just in time. But enough was enough. A swift kick to her torso knocked her down, her blade receding.

Ben snatched his broken lightsaber leaping up to Rey's aid as Fin called after him.

"Ben, you'll be killed!"

"I DON'T CARE!"

He struck his lightsaber for all that was dear in life. It crashed against Starkiller's blade in a searing, scorching, jagged line of frayfractal lightning, screaming in a static flareon with two laser rays jutting from the hilt like crossguards.

Ben's eyes flew wide, as did Starkiller's.

"Whoa…cool!"

The Greatsaber sheered in a crescent sheen, throwing Starkiller back. Ben stood strong with an evil gleam of victory in his eye, and Rey stepped up by his side. With her own pulsating cyan blade, together they rushed the Sith Lord.

Ben upslashed as Rey downslashed, Starkiller stammering to hit both blades in succession. Ben remembered what Phasma had told him about Starkiller being left-handed, and swept behind to his right side gaining the advantage. Starkiller whipped his saber down over his back to block, then back over his shoulder to deflect Rey. His cerebral swipe skirted Rey off balance, and he flew around bash-checking Ben back. As he whirled back to deflect a high-bash, a low-shot met him instead.

Rey's blade stabbed straight through his torso, freezing him where he stood. A look of beguiled horror crossed his face as he fell to his knees. Ben rushed in a bloody rage with saber raised for the finishing kill, but Rey whipped her blade up crossing with his.

Ben shot her a wild look, but in her own eyes was only worry. She shook her head from behind the scorch of laser edges, and the realization dawned. She'd just saved Ben's life.

 _It was so easy to fall._

Alarms blared all through the hull. They all four raced out with Phasma leading the way topside as she knew the ship like field-stripping her weapon. They ran straight through maingate, as everyone was too busy running to battle stations and all who did try to question were outranked and scratching their heads anyway.

The Falcon waited like a perfectly parked limousine right in the wide-open hangarbay and pre-prepped for liftoff due to being powered on by scanning. They all four barreled for the onramp, but a voice in Rey's mind stopped her at the bottom.

 _Come back, Revan._

"Rey! Come on!"

Ben and Fin called to her and she tore up after them. Matt waited for them in the cockpit as they shoved him out of the way.

"You disabled the tractor beam, right?"

"Yes. Please don't yell at me anymore."

The Falcon pulled in her landing gear and rose for takeoff, but no one even raised an alert. They were all clamoring to their own Tie-Fighters flying in the other direction.

Rey gazed long out into the void of space as the Falcon tore away from the Finalizer, the mournful voice of Galen Merek whispering in her heart.

 _The True Way. It's you._


End file.
